由知识对伦理的辩护到伦理对知识的批判——论知识的伦理价值

古希腊哲学最早将美德与知识相联系,“真”的达到就是“善”的实现,人的合目的性是建立在其合规律性的基础上的,伦理学从此有了独立存在的根据。近代知识论提出“知识就是力量”,将获得知识与获得幸福视为同一,知识(理性)是建立伦理的绝对普遍的坚实基础,人的尊严和主体性成为伦理追求的最大价值。20世纪以来,由于科学知识的异化,“知识与人的幸福和命运问题”凸现在当代伦理学面前。为知识找寻一条“应然”的光明之路,不仅是伦理学的理论使命,也是人类自身的神圣使命。     

背景知识对4~8岁儿童和大学生分类活动的影响

以4-8岁儿童和大学生为被试,用虚拟生物图片为材料,采用2(不提供背景知识和提供背景知识)×6(年龄)的实验设计,考察背景知识对被试分类活动的影响及其年龄特点。结果发现:(1)两种实验条件下均有显著的年龄差异。(2)提供背景知识与否对不同年龄被试分类活动的影响不同,对4-5岁儿童分类活动的影响不显著,对6-8岁儿童及大学生分类活动的影响显著。     

Chisholm's Epistemic Principles

Abstract: An exposition and discussion of Chisholm's “epistemic principles.” These are compared with relevant views of Wilfrid Sellars and Richard Foley. A further comparison, with the approach favored by Descartes, is argued to throw light on the status of such principles.     

Healing Rituals for Couples Recovering from Adultery

Recovery from the trauma of adultery is a process that is full of points where the couple can get stuck. We describe an experiential model that utilizes healing rituals. We start with a general exploration of the use of rituals in marriage and family therapy. The key elements of effective rituals are described. We describe stuck points in these relationships including: 1) knowing the details, 2) releasing the anger, 3) showing commitment, 4) rebuilding trust, and 5) rebuilding the relationship. Ritualized interventions are described for each of these stuck points.     

On the empirical indistinguishability of knowledge structures

In recent years a number of articles have focused on the identifiability of the basic local independence model. The identifiability issue usually concerns two model parameter sets predicting an identical probability distribution on the response patterns. Both parameter sets are applied to the same knowledge structure. However, nothing is known about cases where different knowledge structures predict the same probability distribution. This situation is referred to as ʻempirical indistinguishabilityʼ between two structures and is the main subject of the present paper. Empirical indistinguishability is a stronger form of unidentifiability, which involves not only the parameters, but also the structural and combinatorial properties of the model. In particular, as far as knowledge structures are concerned, a consequence of empirical indistinguishability is that the existence of certain knowledge states cannot be empirically established. Most importantly, it is shown that model identifiability cannot guarantee that a certain knowledge structure is empirically distinguishable from others. The theoretical findings are exemplified in a number of different empirical scenarios.     

Do details bug you? Effects of perceptual richness in learning about biological change

People often have difficulty in understanding processes of biological change, and they typically reject drastic life cycle changes such as metamorphosis, except for animals with which they are familiar. Even after a lesson about metamorphosis, people often do not generalize to animals not seen during the lesson. This might be partially due to the perceptual richness of the diagrams typically used during lessons on metamorphosis, which serves to emphasize the individual animal rather than a class of animals. In two studies, we examined whether the perceptual richness of a diagram influences adults' learning and transfer of knowledge about metamorphosis. One study was conducted in a laboratory setting, and the other was online. In both studies, adults who saw the bland diagram during the lesson accurately transferred more than adults who saw the rich diagram during the lesson.     

Fluctuations of answer and confidence rating in a general-knowledge problem task: Is confidence rating a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring?

In order to examine whether confidence rating is a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring, a general-knowledge test was used. A question set was answered in experimental session 1, and the same question set was employed in session 2. Subjects chose one answer from two alternatives. No significant difference in answer accuracy was found between sessions, which suggests that identical information processing was carried out, and that any difference between sessions was based on probabilistic fluctuation. The major results were as follows: (a) In both sessions, answer accuracy was an increasing function of confidence. (b) Answer-change rate (rate of different answers to the same question between sessions) decreased monotonically with confidence. (c) The distributions of confidence rating in session 2, conditional on the rating in session 1, were nearly identical in no-answer-change and answer-change cases. These results suggest that confidence rating is not a result of monitoring memory-relevant output itself but an estimation of possibility of answer fluctuation.